How to survive a business trip?

Each of us had to travel on business at some point in our career. Delegations (whether to meet customers, sign a contract or participate in an event) are part of our daily work, sometimes even more stressful than the work itself, because we are in a different city, sometimes in a different culture. How to survive a business trip?

Plan your journey as closely as possible.

Planning a trip is essential. This should be done as accurately as possible (in the sense of scheduling the meetings), even before booking anything. If you plan your trip well, you will avoid stress. Remember also that not always the cheapest solutions are optimal – especially if you have a meeting on the second day of your trip in one part of the city and the next on the other side of the city. Maybe then it is worth to book a more expensive hotel from which you can get to both of these places without any stress.

2. consider different modes of transport

a woman on the planet a lot depends on where our journey takes place. If we drive in Poland, the spectrum of choice of a vehicle is wide. It is not necessarily worthwhile to travel by one’s own car in this case. If you book early, you can get tickets (including air tickets) that are more attractive than your car, especially if you add fuel. In addition, it gives you time to read something before the meeting, if necessary. When travelling internationally, you can choose from one to three options, depending on your destination (car, train or plane). You should be flexible (sometimes it is cheaper to fly a day earlier than you expected and return the day after).

Create a script of all the documents you need.

Well, we have ordered a hotel, we know how to get there. What is happening now? Firstly, let us make scans of useful documents during the journey. Let us scan your passport, ID card, driving licence, some important letters, etc. Then move them to the Tablet/Smartphone/”Cloud”. If you don’t want to play with your computer, this is a mobile app such as CamScanner for Android and iOS, which will allow you to scan it directly on your phone/tablet. This way you get a backup copy of your documents, for example, to be shown at the Embassy in case of lost or stolen documents.

Set the autoresponder.

A useful function that every e-mail client has. If you are leaving for a country where using the Internet will be difficult (small amounts of WiFi, expensive roaming charges), or simply will not have time for emails, leave an automatic message to return e.g. such content (at the slashes an option to choose depending on the language in which you usually reply in your company on emails):

We do not forget about the dates of departure, assuring our customers that we will respond as soon as we read them out (of course we do it as soon as we wrote ;-)) and giving them a contact person in case of an emergency.

Pack one or more suits.

A useful rule, not only for business trips. We never know what is going to happen during the day. Perhaps during a business meal, we will stain our “business armour” with something and we will not be able to remove the stains even after the meal. We will not always be able to wash our things comfortably either – Hotels that have such an option add salt after it, and washing things in a hotel room can be problematic. In this case, it is not a good idea to take one or more business outfits away.